Daydream Notes

Today (December 12, 2015) is the 30th Anniversary of the Arrow Air Crash, the worst civil aviation disaster in United States Military history, and the worst disaster in Canadian aviation. Short form of what happened: The facts are that on December 12, 1985, a Arrow Air DC-8 took off from Gander International airport, with a crew of six and 248 soldiers of the 101st Airborne. The soldiers were flying home for Christmas after serving as peacekeepers in Beirut. The plane left the runway and immediately crashed, belly flopping into the woods overlooking Gander lake. All were killed. (It actually could have been worse - the crew had the choice of taking off over the lake or taking off over the town of Gander. As somebody who grew up there, I can be glad the pilot choose the lake route, as if the incident had happened over the town, the DC-8 would have taken out the local fire station on crashing, and Gander would have a name like Lockerbie, Scotland.) As to the causes of the...

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, November is nobody's favorite month. It is cold. The yellow face that brings life avoids you. When the sun does show up, it often shines in vain, concealed behind slate grey clouds. Christmas is near enough that you get the stresses of shopping for Christmas, without the benefits of it actually being close to Christmas. If you are a student, you have the reverse ski-jump of exams to look forward to. Frankly it's enough for you to contemplate suicide by flintlock. Still, I'm buoyed up a bit by the results of Canada's federal election. The Liberals crushed the Conservatives to form a new majority government. While I feel this is a big positive development generally, it also means that Canada buying the F-35 is now likely not going to happen. While almost nothing has happened on that front as yet, a proper fighter competition is likely, so good news there. There is also two further bits of good news for Canada's next figh...